Why People Who Have Less Give More

Every one of us can learn valuable lessons from the generosity of the poor.

The incident happened three decades ago when I was in high school. But I still remember it vividly. We had gone on a “culture trip” to spend a few days in a remote village in central India to learn about village life. The village was nondescript, clusters of mud huts surrounded by wheat fields. For someone who grew up in the maximum city of Bombay, it was a remarkable experience.

After the village leader had welcomed us, I was walking around the village when a beaming old woman loudly beckoned me. She was at least 70, grizzled and lean with the build and posture of someone who has labored in the fields all their life. Her hut was very basic, essentially a one-room shack made of mud and cow dung and a thatched roof. When I peeked inside, it had little more than a charpai, or a traditional woven bed, a few pots and pans in the corner, some containing stored foodstuffs, and a smoky fire burning in the center.

Everything the woman possessed could be easily stacked on the single charpai bed with plenty of room to spare. Despite her meager house and few possessions, her face lit up with the most brilliant and welcoming smile. Because I could not understand her language, she gestured to me to sit on the charpai. She offered me a steaming glass of tea and a plate of food. After I finished it, she offered me even more and would not take 'no' for an answer.

Source: City of Joy by Loren Joseph Unsplash Licensed Under CC BY 2.0

I was floored. Here was a woman who had barely enough to eat and little else besides. Yet she was offering me, a perfect stranger, a large fraction of what she possessed. On a relative scale, this is greater generosity than I have encountered before or since. What is more, her offering was made unreservedly and with complete good nature, with no expectation of receiving anything in return.

The reason I remember this experience so vividly all these years later is because of the question that formed in my mind then, which I still haven’t been able to answer satisfactorily:

How can someone who is hanging by a thread economically, having so little money and possessions still be so happy, so confident, so full of joie de vivre, so generous, and so willing to share?

There are many lessons to learn from this old woman about what it means to be happy, to live a meaningful life, and the relatively minor role money and possessions play in such a life. However, the lesson I want to focus on in this blog post is the relationship between having and giving.

This old woman is not an anomaly. It turns out that people who have less give more. In one paper, social psychologists compared low and high social class individuals, defining social class with the person’s own estimate of their socioeconomic rank based on education, income, and occupation status relative to others in their community. In their studies, low social class participants were more generous and believed they should give more of their annual income to charity (4.95 percent vs. 2.95 percent). They were also more likely to trust strangers and showed more helping behavior towards someone in distress. Contrarily, other research has found that higher social class individuals are more unethical. They are more likely to take things from others, lie, and cheat.

Why do those who have less give more? Part of the reason lies in the fact that they are more compassionate and more sensitive to the need of others. Psychologists refer to their way of thinking as a “contextualist tendency” marked by an external focus on what is going on in their environment and with other people. On the other hand, those who have more tend to be self-centered with “solipsistic tendencies” that are concentrated on their own internal states, goals, motivations, and emotions.

They also vary in their time orientations. Those who have less are focused on the present whereas those who have more are future-oriented to a greater extent. Like the old woman, the poor may choose to behave on their generous impulses in the here and now, instead of thinking much about the future repercussions of their giving inclinations.

Source: Village Home by Sudhanshu Goyal Flickr Licensed Under CC BY 2.0

Many readers will consider the old woman’s generosity to be foolish and reckless, harmful to her own well-being. However, when I look back and recall the expression of unalloyed happiness on her face, I cannot help but feel envious of her in a way that I don’t feel envious of anyone else.

Yes, having money and high social status is certainly a good thing in many respects. Money provides comfort and security, and a lack of it can produce real hardships. But once our basic needs and even some comforts are met, isn’t there value in experiencing compassion for others and acting on this impulse? Isn’t there some benefit to being sensitive to the distress of others, and behaving like the old woman in the Indian village at least once in a while?

The people who can potentially do the most damage, at the height of power, throughout ALL of known humanity, in a state of rampant corruption, lawless, mega-lies, and trapped. The worst collection of sociopaths, psychopaths and various other degenerates the world has ever produced.

The good news is they also picked a fight with something beyond their ability to even comprehend.

The bad news, I'm quite happy to be the first, and only target of opportunity. We also aren't dumb.

I used to be intrigued by this question, only I looked at it with regard to people in my own community. When I was younger I worked as a pizza delivery driver so I learned which addresses would be most likely to give the best tips. While my colleagues fought over the McMansions in the more exclusive parts of town, I generally snatched up deliveries to older houses in working class neighborhoods. My theory of why people who have less tip more is, briefly: 1. Richer people see a tip as a token of appreciation. Poor people know it could be the difference between getting your car repo'ed and losing your job, or hanging on. 2. Rich people assume the company is treating their low wage employees ethically. Poor people, who are more likely to have worked similar jobs, know many employers have adversarial relationships with employees and won't hesitate to reduce their pay or perks if it saves them money. The third reason is one I didn't realize until I quit delivering and started a job that paid me many times more and ultimately allowing me to live comfortably: Rich people justify inequality by believing poor people didn't work hard enough, and therefore don't deserve help. Poor people know it comes down to luck and they also see how a relatively small amount of money can make a huge difference for someone struggling to get by, because you often need to spend money to save money-- whether that means paying for gas so you can drive to a job interview, or buying quality food to keep yourself healthy enough for manual labor, or just enough to keep your bills current so you don't find yourself with exorbitant shut off and reconnection fees. Poor people know that a little bit of kindness can go a long way toward improving somebody's life.

Great article. I grew up in a solidly middle class family but my
parents grew up during the depression. It's not like they told
stories about it a lot, but I heard a fair amount about it, and
was aware at maybe an earlier age than most kids that others
had gotten by with a lot less than I had at that time. As an
older person now, I'm living at (maybe below) the poverty
line, but still try to make at least 3 or 4 small contributions
every month. These are to really good causes, and it makes
me feel great to know that I'm helping out in some small way.
In fact, I always wish that I had more money to contribute to more places, or larger amounts. I know that there's always
someone out there with less resources that myself, and that I;m relatively lucky to have enough food, a place to live,
clothes to wear, and am safe (that is to say: not living in a
refugee camp in a war-torn country.).
A lot of people get by with a heck of a lot less, and for that
I'm grateful. It gives me the empathy to want to help out others in even the smallest of ways if I'm able to. I also know what it feels like to have someone help you out just because they want to, and that feels great too.

When I needed some money, one of my friends, who has a huge debt on his credit card, gave me little money. He has to pay interest for his debt every month. But still, he was willing to give me little money from the amount he reserved for his monthly expenses. On the contrary, my wealthy friends who are earning a six-figure salary were hesitated to help me. Another middle-class friend explained to me about his poor economic situation and told me politely that he was not in the right situation to borrow me money. He also apologized for that. Two wealthy friends were stopped replying my message after I asked for their help.

I think only economically poor people or the people who experienced poor economic condition before can understand the others who are in similar condition.